Dolphingirl

I, too, saw Thursday night's Stiefel/Murphy, and loved it! As a young dancer, it was very inspiring and it was great to see a new company, but with names that I recognized. I was a little disappointed that Radetsky was not cast in Thursday's show, as I was really looking forwards to seeing him dance, but I have been told they are coming back next year. So maybe then! Technically, I found the company, as a whole, to be very clean, and I agree that the corps was very well aligned and together. I was incredibly impressed by Murphy's quadruple fouettes during the Black Swan Pas. She did 2 singles, and then a quadruple, four times through, before switching to straight singles. At the end, it seemed she fell out of her last turn, but covered it amazingly well, in such a way that I wasn't sure that she had actually stumbled. The only major mess-up that I can remember was that almost everyone was having trouble getting offstage behind the scenery without being seen. It might not have been a problem from lower down, but from the back of the balcony, I saw a lot of movement. Two such examples: after Odette dives "into the lake" I could see her walking away, and during the court/ballroom, when the 2 incarnations of von Rothbart switch in a flash of light, I could clearly see the exiting one exit. It was slightly distracting, as I started to watch for it at the end...it certainly happened several times. Otherwise, a wonderful show, and I'd go back in a minute!

That's very interesting, Sandik, that you bring up Lester Horton. For our school's "pro-track" program, each person has to write a 1-2 page paper about some aspect of dance that we were assigned. One girl had just turned in a paper on Horton, and had given that exact information. So we were debating whether that meant the first ever or just the first Modern company. To everyone: Thank you so much for your answers. I'll take them in to class next time I see that particular teacher.

In class today, somehow the topic came up of what the first integrated ballet company was. I'm still curious, so I was wondering if anyone here knows? Thanks, Dolphingirl

Treefrog is right that we disagreed on a few things; here are my takes on the evening. Though I definitely agree that Calvin Kitten was a little too boyish, I don't think it was all that horrible. It wasn't completely inappropriate for the role. I actually have to say, I think that Les Patineurs was my least favorite of the night. Too obvious, and possibly even too cutesy. Maybe I'm missing something, but there seemed to be much more depth and character in the the other two. That's not to say that I didn't like it, though. I definitely liked the fact that for the ice, and the ice only, there was white marley. That was quite realistic. One thing I did not particularly like was the color of the pink costumes. They were far too bright in comparison to the other costumes and seemed to call undue attention to those two dancers, one of whom seemed to routinely have a secebesque. That's just me being picky though. For Monotones, I enjoyed both quite a lot. 1 just struck me as more interesting choreography, and I think the music might have something to do with that, though I'm not sure that it's the fact that I knew the music. I just liked the first music more, and the music itself seemed more inspired. I'd have to watch them both again to say exactly what about the choreography I liked better, but I think it was something along the lines of 1 being more fluid, and 2 being more shape to shape to shape. 1 also seemed a little bit more like my style of choreography, though much more developed, of course. I found myself deciding what I wanted the dancers to do next. A Wedding Bouquet was certainly quite wierd, but actually, incredibly pleasing. I loved the narration, and found myself cracking up quite a bit. The little bits after each character listed in the program were funny too. While I'm thinking of it, on the same program Treefrog mentions, I might add Les Noces. It just seems right to me. I'm not even sure if I can explain why. As for the dancing and the choreography, I enjoyed both, but I guess maybe found it a little too unoriginal at some points, for such being pretty original otherwise. Some characters were well developed on stage, and some were not. Thus, at places where many characters were onstage together, I think there was less feeling being emanated. I did find Julia and her dog to be a particular highlight. My big question though, is whether or not that was a wig that Maia Wilkins was wearing. I'm not sure quite how she would have hidden her real hair underneath, because I know she has very long hair, but I'm also not sure how she would manage to make her blonde curly hair not just straight and red, but also limp and bodyless. My impressions may change after Sunday, when I get a chance to see it again, but these are some of my main impressions.

I just wanted to add that a friend of mine, my age, who does not dance, went to see the movie and loved it. She "got" the movie, and was able to articulate back to me exactly what she liked and did not like, both about the style (she thought it was fine that there was no plot) and the dancing (she particularly liked "White Widow" and was very curious about "My Funny Valentine") I will say she is an incredibly cultured and articulate 10th grader, but I was still pretty impressed. The one thing that surprised me was that she loved the "Blue Snake". She understood it's wackiness, and thought it seemed like a good children's ballet, not as part of a serious repertoire, but she liked it all the same. So (at least a very small fraction of) the public has recieved the movie well.

I must say, I loved "The Company". Yes, I do think it had several flaws, but I really did enjoy it. It was really cool being able to see all my favorite dancers on screen, and know that yes, that really is what they are like, or NO, that's not at ALL what they are like. I recognized so many of the places, including the studios, where I rehearsed for Nutcracker with them, way back in '98. I liked seeing so much of their repertoire, especially "Light Rain" which I absolutely adore. However, I disliked "The Blue Snake" quite a lot. It seemed like "Lion King on Broadway" gone horribly wrong. I also disliked Mr. A's character. It didn't seem at all like Mr. Arpino to me, from when I have met him, or seen him on TV, or anything like that. I also felt that the story was a little bit patchy. In my improv club, we're always being told to pick up on clues to bring back later and make the scene grow. It seemed like that would be good advice for this movie. There were a lot of scenes which led nowhere. I don't mean like the performance in the rain where nobody got hurt. I think that the rain just added to the mood of "My Funny Valentine". I mean like the scene where Pierre Lockett gets into an argument with Mr. A (I can't even remember what he is called in the movie) about the dance he is teaching to one of the company members. This could have been brought back later, but it never was. Really, though, it certainly lived up to my expectations, and I've definitely built up a lot, having been waiting for a good year and a half for this movie. It is definitely worth seeing! Congratulations to the Joffrey on a job well done!

It's either that or Sugar Plum though, and I think I would probably rather hear the Trepak than Sugar Plum. My favorite recent one is using Sugar Plum to promote the "Barbie of Swan Lake" video. :shrug:

I do not currently read either DanceView or Ballet Alert, but I would imagine they are wonderful, and I hope that I can read them at some point...it's close to Christmas, right? As for other magazines, I like both Pointe and Dance Magazines. In general I like Dance better, which is funny because Pointe is the one I actually get. Pointe sometimes seems a little flimsy, with some of their articles being a little useless, especially their product reviews. I tend to like the articles in Dance much better. Dance also covers forms of dance other than ballet, which is nice. All the magazines mentioned have a website of some sort. You've already found the Ballet Alert, and then Pointe and Dance are pointemagazine.com and dancemagazine.com.

La Bayerdere: painkillers for all the blistered feet and sore muscles after the performance are included!

In my history class (a Highschool AP European history) we will be creating a "Salon" from the period of Enlightenment, approximately the late 17th, early 18th century. A salon was a place that the well-educated could go to take part in and discuss the arts, sciences, etc. Our Salon includes dialogues about subjects of the time and music and costumes, like a play. I would also like to include dance, as ballet was just beginning to emerge(this is around the time of Louis XIV, though our text mentions nothing about his role in ballet). I know that ballet was quite quite different at the time, and not always recorded, but I was wondering if there was someone who knew a piece from the period, or a place where I can get more information about the styles so I could put my own piece together. Thank you so much! Dolphingirl

My favorites are the Spanish dance (Chocolate) and the March from the party scene, when Drosselmeyer's dolls dance. And Snow, for sure! As an interesting point, several parts are not Tchaikovsky's original work. Both the music for the Children's gallop and the Polichinelle dance are French folk tunes, and supposedly parts of the Arabian (Coffee) dance are from a Georgian lullaby! And just as a question, in the Nutcracker Suite, why were Spanish and Mother Ginger excluded?

Thank you - that's a very nice compliment, Carbro Dolphingirl

Nope, you are right, it is my sister who is unhealthily addicted to TV, but she also likes reading. It's very hard to get her to read books she hasn't read before, but she's starting to discover some of the books I read when I was her age, that have been on my shelf. She has difficulty knowing how to pick books that she'll like, but once she finds them, she can't put them down. I was much like that at her age, but I didn't watch nearly as much TV, so I spent more time looking for good books. I am currently at another local private school, in the highschool. It is very math and science oriented, but doesn't have to be- I prefer the history and language studies, so I plan to take lots of classes in those subjects and purely meet the requirements for math and science. My English teacher this past year told us at the beginning of the year that each book we were reading had been banned at some point, and throughout the year we discussed why the books were banned, and what we thought about it for each book. It lead to some pretty exciting discussions, because occasionally there would be people who disagreed with the majority of the class (the majority agreed that none of the books should be banned except maybe in an individual school) We also tied many other forms of media and communication into our class. We wrote lots of poetry and short stories to go along with Haroun, we watched and analyzed the movie "Ordinary People" to go along with Catcher, and we acted out scenes and played around with character personalities in Macbeth. Reading back through Treefrog's post, my highschool seems very much like hers, in terms of English education. Dolphingirl

Reading was always encouraged in my life, both outside of school and in. I certainly knew how to read before entering Kindergarten, but I only have vague memories of being taught. In fact, all I really remember was being *afraid* to read to my preschool teacher, I guess because I was worried about being wrong. I do enjoy telling a story of driving past a car wash and reading the sign "Car Wash" because I could recognize the "Car" from my name and the "Wash" from Washington. This must have been at 4. I was at the same private, montessori-based school from kindergarten through 8th grade. My real reading memories begin in 1st grade, though I'm told that in Kindergarten my teacher often had to pry me away from the reading section and make me work on other things. In first and second grade, we had "reading groups" which were arranged by ability. We came up with names for ourselves (Golden Eagles and Raining Cats and Dogs were my two groups) and our teacher selected books for us to read, based again on ability. I remember my meaner side coming out and laughing at some of the second graders who were working on sounding out two letter combinations on flash cards, while I as a first grader was in the highest group. In these groups, we would get together and discuss our opinions of the books, do roleplays of some of the scenes, or whatever else we thought was appropriate. We always had a teacher overseeing the meetings, which had regularly scheduled times, but we often got to make discussion decisions by ourselves. We had an open classroom, and were able to make decisions about the work we did, so I often chose reading as my activity. We had a library period once a week, where we learned how to find things according to the Dewey Decimal System and our librarian helped us find tons of books. It was probably 1st grade that I was introduced to the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, which are probably my all time favorites. I particularly remember being allowed to sit out of the class song time before dismissal, because my teacher was impressed with my reading one of Laura's adventures. Around this time also (7ish) I began teaching my sister to read. She was 3 at the time and I went with her and bought some flashcards, and stickers, and I began giving her reading lessons. I wrote common two letter combinations on cards, like I had seen in class, and started helping her sound out the combos. After that, I wrote out simple three letter words, then more. I don't remember how long it took, but she really enjoyed the lessons and begged me for more...maybe it was just because of the stickers. She's now 11 and an avid reader. We've been fighting over who gets to read the 5th Harry Potter first. I think she won though. 3rd and 4th grade weren't anything special, in my remembering. We did standard book reports often, and we still met in groups to discuss books. Usually we were given a selection of 5 or 6 books that had something to do with the subject we were studying (either fiction or non) and we picked the one that interested us most. Our teacher would also read aloud to us, and one day we as a class of 25 opted out of extra recess in order to finish "My Brother Sam is Dead" about the Revolutionary War. 5th and 6th grade were probably my favorites, because I had the best socialstudies/language arts teacher. She told us "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" one year and "The Popol Vuh", which is the Mayan Creation Story, the next. This wasn't precisely reading, since it was all in her own words, but she would read passages for us. We read in groups too, things like "A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver" by E.L. Konigsburg. I finished it the first day, and had to endure the slow going, much like other people have posted about. However, after 4th grade, the amount of time I spent reading for pleasure went down considerably, as my level of homework and my commitment to other things(ballet) went up. I'd still pick up new books and read them at lightning speed, but not as often as I had in years before. 7th and 8th grade were good years for me. We had a summer reading book, but we were also required to start the year by turning in a list of all the books we'd read, plus their lengths. We also had to fill out "reading and writing surveys" in which we had to describe in an essay form our thoughts on reading and writing, so that the teacher had an idea of what to expect from us and to know where to guide us. We often had reading time instead of a discussion in English, but we still did group things. I most enjoyed "The Chosen" at the end of 8th grade. It did so much for our group in terms of growing as a class, it was pretty amazing. Our teacher usually just sat back and let us run the discussions and we had some very interesting and deep conversations. We also read a few things as a class that were well below our level. We read "Johnny Tremain" during our Revolutionary war studies and we all hated it. At the end, we did projects on HyperStudio(a sort-of low form of powerpoint) in which we had jobs somewhat like the ones Vagansmom described. I had to describe the locations and find out how realistic the descriptions were. A silly thing, because there were no actual descriptions of locations in the book, but I had a lot of fun looking at old maps of Boston! I started a new school for 9th grade, where English class took on a much different form. We went from one book to another much more quickly, and had many more written assignments than at my previous school. This year we read "Haroun and the Sea of Stories", "Of Mice and Men", "Black Boy" "Catcher in the Rye", and "Macbeth". We also had various short stories sprinkled here and there, and "Haroun" involved lots of creative writing. We wrote analytical essays of several of the books, and, especially for Catcher, we had to turn in questions and "insights" for each chapter. These insights were just interesting things we noticed from the chapter, but had to be written in the claim, context, evidence, explanation format. I had the department's best teacher, and, unfortunately, I'm told that the teaching from other teachers is not nearly as good. That's my reading experience in a (rather large) nutshell. Dolphingirl

Oh, I like these! At least the ones I understand... unfortunately, I only speak "ballet french" and so I don't get the ones that play off of other meanings that the words, or combos, might have. But the ones I get are a lot of fun! If only I could think of any. Dolphingirl P.S. Mr. Johnson, I'm quite fond of the Joffrey's "Ballon"!